Your Quality Doesn't Define My Value

During the 1980s, it was all about "hi-fi." All the electronics companies competed on who could produce higher fidelity sound. But then, in an instant, high fidelity sound didn't matter at all. As soon as the mp3 became the music format of choice, the quality standards changed. The mp3 was designed to compress more data into a smaller filesize and, by its very nature, the output offers relatively poor quality sound compared to almost all other digital or analogue formats. But all the big names in audio - Yamaha, Onkyo, Bang & Olufson, all of a sudden abandoned their devotion to the highest fidelity possible and started producing systems that you could stick your iPod in. They may sound good - but they are certainly not as good.

Cameras are the same. Film is as good as it gets. In fact, camera companies compete over which of their digital cameras comes closest to reproducing the quality of film. Megapixels became the name of the game and we were told we all wanted more of them.

Then the makers of mobile phones started adding cameras to our phones and, in an instant, the quality of the picture became less of an issue. Sure they are still making strides to improve the quality of the cameras, but a camera on a cell phone is still far from good. In fact most are pretty bad. But go to any event or any museum and watch how many people, young and old, are taking pictures with their phones.

Companies always ask consumers if we care about quality - sound quality, picture quality or any other quality - and we always say yes. And we think we do. That is, until we don't. Not as much as we thought, anyway.

We will gladly sacrifice high fidelity sound in favor of 1,000 songs in our pockets. We will gladly sacrifice the quality of film or the weight of a good camera to snap a few bad pictures with our phones. Even YouTube is relatively bad quality, but we're ok with it because it's so easy to use.

Companies still think we value the quality and the qualities they think are important. Cellphone manufacturers kept adding more and more buttons and features to their phones because, as they said, that's what their consumers wanted. That was until Apple showed up and gave us less...and it turned out what we told companies we wanted, was not what we wanted.

The "superior quality" that so many companies strive for does indeed make their products better, but value is only achieved when their products make our lives better...and that can often happen with lower quality products.

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Comments

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Well written! I enjoyed reading it. Indeed quality is ignored by many.

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For me it's valuable and useful for everyday living.

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It's true for everything in this world!

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and it's true for everything in this world. people don't know what they want till they get it

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[sell cell phone]

Well today everyone wants to live the life with ease...And thus we will gladly sacrifice the quality of film or the weight of a good camera to snap a few bad pictures with our phones.this post is just a quick recap and is so very well written..this is an appreciable work...

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I grew up in a time of monotone and when we got stero we thought we were in heaven, Wow!! Now the sounds that come out of the speakers are amazing. I still prefer Bose.

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[Jeremy]

I agree totally, but think that part of the problem is a distinction in the definition of quality. Quality in my mind means conformance to specifications or more simply, delivering what was promised or expected. With respect to hi fi, I think the reason why consumers preferred mp3 is not a willingness to accept less quality - I think it is because hi fi manufacturers made the assumption that consumers would continue to pay for incremental improvements in sound quality when in fact consumers really valued a new mix of product attributes at the expense of sound fidelity. This, to me, is a classic case of disruptive technology.

[Keesjan Kleef]

I think the biggest problem is that we define the quality of a product in one aspect. With music it is either great sound, great usability or a lot of songs.

But as a consumer I want it all. But I also understand that I sometimes need to make a choice. when I need to choose one aspect is more important than another. I choose a mp3 player for music if I am travelling. The quality of the sound is less important as my surrounding area interferes with it. But the small size and the number of songs are far more important.

At home I choose for another product, because I have a location where the quality of the sound makes a difference and then I choose the quality of sound.

So as a consumer the quality of a product is more than the quality of one aspect of the product.

[Alexandra Ripken]

Thanks for your thoughts, dear Simon.
I agree: Quality very often means Comfort. This is an experience I made as a fundraising consultant. Quality for the client often means "to make it easy".

I "got to know you" via your TED video last summer and since then I appreciate to read your posts. I even quoted you with your name, your "Golden Circle Modell" and your post "Fitting In" in my coming (German) book to fundraising as I did before on my blog.

Have a good day
Alexandra from Germany/ Thuringia

[Peter Paluska]

Interesting thoughts here, Simon, to be sure. However, I feel like a distinction should be made: Hi-Fi is a sound technology, while MP3 is a delivery system, so kind of like comparing an orange tree or grove with apple juice.

I agree though that consumers do tend to have a mixed-up mindset when it comes to quality vs. convenience or hipness of the technology offered. Now, the race seems to be motivated by offering the best possible quality in the most convenient package or delivery vehicle.

In other words, the MP3 or similar music file will win out as the vehicle (for now) and it's just a question of making the sound as close to the quality of a brand-new vinyl LP as humanly possible, because we're not going back to LPs as the vehicle.
What to do?

Thanks as always!

Peter

[Darren Starr]

Awesome and so true, definitely keeping it real here. Great post! :)